At my wits end with my baby’s sleep

[Newmama93]

Hi all,

I don’t know how much longer I can do this, I’m a FTM and my babe is 5 and a half months old, since 4 months he started waking hourly, I then put him in our bed and was feeding him back to sleep just so I could sleep some more. For the last 2 weeks he’s waking up to 5 times an hour, I wish I was exaggerating. Every time I have to try and feed him back to sleep or cuddle him and after some effort he’ll go back but then wake again SO soon. He’s then up for the day at 430AM!! His day naps are bloody 30 minutes at a time and I’m just a wreck, I’m a zombie. I said NO to him this morning, he found it funny but I’m really upset with myself. I don’t want to stop breastfeeding or sleep train but feel I’m out of options?

Please anyone

Where's his dad? Need to remove you and your boobs from the equation and get dad putting him down - no need to sleep train or stop feeding, but you do need to break the association between you/boobs and sleep. Will he sleep in a sling/pram during the day? More day sleep helps make more night sleep

Even if you need to do the majority of wakings say between 1130 and 530am, you can go to bed at 8 and get a chunk of sleep in beforehand if your partner does 8-1130

Hubby is working and he tries to put him down but he screams for so long I end up taking him. Thanks for your reply!

4 mo sleep regression.

Ask your HV for advice. Look up gentle sleep training. If you know what you’re doing and DH helps, this could be over in a few days. If you leave it it will slowly get better after a few months, by which point you’ll be completely mad.

Do you have anybody that could take him for a few hours in the day so you can catch up on some sleep?
Hopefully it's 4m sleep regression in which case it should finish up soon🤞

On your DP's days off would your son take a bottle if you expressed so you could go to bed really early? It's not ideal missing your full evening but if you could go down say at 6/7 and your partner take him until 10-11 and put him down for the night at least you'd be getting a chunk of sleep even if you then need to get up at that time to settle him

My firstborn was like this ; I became so tired I started to hallucinate .
The NCT breastfeeding counsellor told me that lots of babies suckle almost constantly at this age to stimulate increased milk production and change in composition . It took a few weeks but by about seven months he started sleeping from 11pm through to 5.30am .